630 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



forming a conspicuous mark when the bird sails overhead. Plate C. 

 This vulture formerly ranged from the Colorado to the Columbia Rivers, 

 between the Sierra Nevadas and the sea, and is said to have been in 

 the habit of ascending the Columbia for a distance of 500 miles in 

 order to feast upon the abundant dead salmon cast up on the banks. 

 While this section of country is the regular habitat of the California 

 Vulture, individuals have been reported from Arizona, or even so far 

 outside these limits as southwestern Utah, though these last may be 

 regarded as stragglers. A few hundred miles more or less would, of 

 course, be nothing to a bird of such powers of flight that it seems to 

 float in the air with as much ease as a fish floats in water, for it would 

 seem as if nature having assigned the vultures to do scavenger's duty 

 had made some amends by giving them a strong and graceful flight. 

 Like the other members of the family, the California Vulture feeds 

 chiefly on carrion ; in spite of its size and strength rarely attacking liv- 

 ng animals, unless they have been so severely wounded as to be unable 

 to walk, and while several have been known to combine forces and at- 

 tack and kill young calves, this is very exceptional. 



The strength of these birds is shown by the fact that four of them 

 were able to drag the carcass of a young bear, weighing 100 pounds, for 

 a distance of 200 yards, but owing to the structure of their feet and 

 the weakness of the beak and claws their powers of offence are by no 

 means commensurate with their size. The bird seems never to have 

 been very abundant, and although Dr. Newbury speaks of it as com- 

 mon in the Sacramento Valley in 1850, he does not mention it as occur- 

 ring in flocks. On the Columbia not more than two or three would be 

 seen at a time, and although Dr. Canfield has seen as many as a hundred 

 and fifty gathered around a dead antelope, it is probable that in this 

 case they had assembled from over a great area — brought together by 

 the actions of the bird who first discovered the dead animal. Soaring 

 as they do at great heights these birds command a view over a territory 

 many miles in extent, their keen eyes not only searching the ground 

 below, but keeping a sharp lookout on the behavior of any of their fel- 

 lows that chance to be within sight. No sooner does one bird spy a 

 prospective dinner than another, still farther away, is apprised of the 

 fact by his actions, and in a like manner, number two informs a third, 

 so that the good news is rapidly spread, and throughout a vast area 

 the vultures come hurrying to one point. It is thus that Canou Tris- 

 tram accounts for the vast congregation of vultures at Sevastopol dur- 

 ing the Crimean war, supposing that in this manner "may have col- 

 lected the whole race from the Caucasus and Asia Minor." 



The threatened extermination of the California Vulture is indirectly, 

 rather than directly, due to the agency of man, for its suspicious nature 

 has ever rendered this bird difficult to capture, while the breeding 

 places are in out of the way and often inaccessible localities, and al- 

 though the Mexican miners of Lower California are said to kill the bird 



